


The City She Loves Me (Atlantis Reprise)

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Foxtrot [88]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Thoughtcrimes (2003)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6305755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: <i>any. any (semi)sentient object. Atlantis loves John Sheppard, every version of him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The City She Loves Me (Atlantis Reprise)

She wakes slowly, as if from a dream.  
  
People.  
  
The people are home.  
  
No, not quite people. They do not have the song in their veins. They have murmurs and whispers, but not the song.  
  
None of them, save one.  
  
Imperator. Iohannes.  
  
When he first lies down with her, she is overjoyed, elated, and she rushes to meet him, meld their minds, and she sees his damage, sees his pain. And she helps him fix it. He has the song, but the other songs inside of him are too many, and they must be silenced.  
  
Until one tries to silence his song, and she cannot fight it, and the other songs, they burst forth in a single, unified chorus, and now he is a choir, he is a symphony, and together they can do anything.  
  
She weeps when he leaves, and she rejoices when he returns, and when the choir becomes to much, she takes him into her embrace and cradles him to sleep. 

***

In another universe, in another time, she wakes from her sleep and rises from the waters, and she greets her imperator with a shout of joy.  
  
But he does not hear.  
  
And he does not hear.  
  
He can only feel.  
  
When he lies down with her, she sees that his song is broken, that the note has gone sour and it is one long, endless scream.  
  
So she learns to touch him gently, caress the curves of his consciousness, help him see and taste and feel when she reaches out to him.  
  
When enemies breach her gate, when he reaches out to her, she becomes his eyes, becomes his ears, and together they prevail.

***

In another dimension, in another time, she wakes from her sleep, and she embraces all who lie with her, Iohannes with his childlike wonder, Carfili with his fear-tinged gentleness, Evanesco with his warm fondness.  
  
She embraces them and protects them, flies with them and fights for them, and they love her.  
  
She loves them.  
  
When she is with child, is surrogate to the creature nestled among her corridors and spires, she is afraid, and when the time comes for the creature to be born, only Evanesco can understand, and when she screams with the birthing pains, only he hears her, but her cries and the child's cries damage him, and for days afterward all both of them can see is colors.  
  
When Carfili flies her through time and space, toward the place her first people went, she is at first afraid, then relieved, because her new people fight the Pale Ones, and her new people prevail, and she will protect them still.  
  
When they take away her Imperator Primogen, her Iohannes, she weeps, and her tears will not dry till they bring him back, and if they do not bring him back, she will send for help, and they will not like who she calls.

***

In other places, other dimensions, her Imperator is a broken soldier, dragged from the war and then thrust back into it after returning from the brink of certain death.  
  
Her Imperator is no soldier at all, but a thin, whip-like thing whose song is numbers, numbers, numbers.  
  
Her Imperator is a soldier without comrades, a leaf blown on the wind, who chose to come to her with the toss of a coin, whose song is Johnny Cash's Solitary Man.  
  
Her Imperator is a number-singer turned ghost turned soldier who comes to her with his best friend and whose song is  _Scooby dooby doo, where are you?_


End file.
